


Already Gone

by johnwatso



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, M/M, Memory Loss, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-09 08:29:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3243026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnwatso/pseuds/johnwatso
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dear Mr Greg Lestrade<br/>Sherlock Holmes has had John Watson erased from his memory. Please never mention their relationship to him again.<br/>Thank you<br/>Lacuna Inc.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders."
> 
> \- Friedrich Nietzsche

Another gloomy day. London. But also gloomy in feeling, not just in the greyish haze that dampens every corner of the city.

John wakes up, but barely. It feels as though his head is in a vice, and the pressure is only worsening as his eyes open more. He’s used to the morning headache that comes after grinding his teeth the whole night, but this is worse. He feels duller, even more so than usual. There wasn’t even any whiskey last night.

Sighing, he rolls out of bed, his body oddly stiff. Flu season. He adds two paracetamol to his meagre breakfast and rubs his eyes, willing his headache away. The last thing he wants to do is go to the clinic today, but he has to pay the bills somehow. He fleetingly thinks of the pistol in the desk drawer. Best not to dwell on that.

Wallet, keys, phone. Check, check, hmm. Not in its usual place (on his side table, connected to the charger). He eventually finds it on the coffee table, next to yesterday’s paper. His nightly routine dictates otherwise, but he must have left it there before passing out.

John speed-walks out of the door and onto the main road to signal for a taxi. He’ll never make it to work on time at this rate, but he can’t find it in him to care. Second thought of the pistol in the desk drawer. Of the day.

Once in the taxi, he realises that he doesn’t have it in him to actually make it to the clinic for his shift. He tells the driver to take him to Russel Square Gardens and self-consciously calls his boss in front of him to tell her that he won’t be making it into work today. Although he isn’t usually an impulsive person, the decision sits well. Third thought of the pistol in the desk drawer. He supposes he just woke up in a funk this morning.

———

It’s freezing in the park. Worse than he thought it would be, even for February. He sits on a bench for a while before boredom sets in. Takes his laptop out of his briefcase and connects. What next? 

He finds himself typing the address for his blog. No entries for 5 years. Not since the serial suicides. Ella would be so proud. He decides to open a new entry. Might as well.

_Nothing ever happens to me. And when it does, I’d rather it didn’t._  
_The park looks the same as before I left for war.  
_ _Everything looks the same as before I left for war._

He doesn’t bother posting it.

———

_If only I could meet someone new_ , he thinks while he drinks his second cup of the day. _If only I wasn’t such a monumental fuck-up. I don’t know. Maybe I should call Mary. Haven’t seen her since. Before._

He gets up to buy another cup of coffee, waits in line behind a tall, frankly beautiful man with a long, dramatic coat. The man glances at him and he smiles in kind, a smile that isn’t returned.

_Why do I fall in love with every man I see that shows me the least bit of attention?_ He shakes his head at himself. Fourth thought of the pistol in the desk drawer; first thought of Sholto. Progress.

The man in front of him starts yelling at the barista. Questioning her. The security guard is about to kick him out, or worse. John feels oddly protective of him, can’t help it. Always been a caretaker. 

He grabs the man by the elbow. “I think we’d better go now,” he says before the security guard has a chance to intercede. The man huffs. Follows.

Once outside, John really looks at him. He has the most oddly magnetic face he thinks he’s ever seen. He’s texting someone, his attention on his phone screen as he taps away furiously. He huffs again and thrusts his phone into his coat pocket, rolling his eyes.

“Can I borrow your phone?” he asks, glancing briefly at John.

“Sorry?” He really is dull today.

Impatiently, he repeats the question, “Can I borrow your phone? Mine’s dead,” and holds his hand out expectantly.

John pulls it out of his coat and gives it to him.

“Thank you,” he says. It seems out of place on him. He’s all edges.

As he taps away at the keys on my phone, he glances up at John. He seems curious.

“Afghanistan or Iraq?” he asks.

“Sorry?” Should have slept in this morning.

“Which was it? Afghanistan or Iraq?”

“Afghanistan… Sorry, how did you…?”

John’s phone buzzes in his hand.

“If the brother has the green ladder, arrest the brother,” he barks into the speaker and hangs up. Charming fellow.

He looks John over again, more thoughtfully this time.

“How do you feel about serial killers?” he asks, phrasing it as though it’s an everyday question.

“I’m sorry, _what_?”

He’s typing again, more viciously this time (if possible). “I need help apprehending a known serial killer. I could use a medical opinion.”

He smiles in John’s general direction, and it looks misplaced, like a tuxedo on a child.

“How did you know about Afghanistan?” John asks, partly to himself.

The man hits send on a message and passes John his phone. “Coming?” he asks.

“We don’t know a thing about each other. I don’t know why you’re chasing a serial killer. I don’t even know your name.”

The man sighs, visibly put out at having to explain himself at all. “I know you’re an Army doctor and you’ve been invalided home from Afghanistan. I know you’re recently divorced, likely a mutual decision, probably not ideal circumstances. I know you’ve got a brother who’s worried about you but you won’t go to him for help because you don’t approve of him - probably because he’s an alcoholic. And I know that you skipped out on work today, likely because of the weather, or your headache, which the coffee isn’t helping, I’m afraid.”

John stares at him, mouth slightly agape.

“That’s enough to be going on with, don’t you think? The name’s Sherlock Holmes.”

Sherlock extends his hand and John, still slightly shocked, takes it. Shakes it once.

“We’d better get a move on,” Sherlock says, and spins around, his coat creating more than enough fanfare in the process.

John isn’t sure why, but he follows.

———

Sherlock hails a taxi and they both climb in.

“Okay… you’ve got questions,” he addresses John without looking at him.

“Yeah, where are we going?”

“Crime scene. Next?”

“Who are you? What do you do?”

“What do you think?”

John hesitates, wonders. “I’d say private detective…”

“But?”

“But the police don’t go to private detectives.”

“I’m a consulting detective. Only one in the world. I invented the job.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means when the police are out of their depth - which is always - they consult me.”

“The police don’t consult amateurs.”

Sherlock looks at him. Hit a nerve, it seems. “When I first laid eyes on you earlier, I said, ‘Afghanistan or Iraq?’ You looked surprised.”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“I didn’t know. I saw. Your haircut, the way you held yourself says military. But your briefcase, the pen in your pocket with drug company advertisement on it says doctor, so Army doctor - obvious. Then there’s your brother. Your phone…” 

Once again, Sherlock holds his hand out for John’s phone and, once again, John passes it to him without thought.

“It’s expensive, e-mail enabled, MP3 player, but you’re not the flashy type, judging by your clothing and frankly alarming choice in briefcase. It’s a gift, then,” he turns the phone over; it’s evidence. “Scratches. Not one, many over time. It’s been in the same pocket as keys and coins. The man sitting next to me wouldn’t treat his one luxury item like this, so it’s had a previous owner. Next bit’s easy. You know it already.”

“The engraving,” John says, of the _Harry Watson From Clara xxx_ engraving on the back of the phone.

“Harry Watson. Clearly a family member who’s given you his old phone. Not your father, this is a young man’s gadget, so brother it is. Now, Clara. Who’s Clara? Three kisses says it’s a romantic attachment. The expense of the phone says wife, not girlfriend. She must have given it to him recently as a gift. Marriage in trouble then. If she’d left him, he would have kept it. People do: sentiment. But no, he wanted rid of it. He left her. He gave the phone to you.

“How could you have possibly known about the drinking?”

“Shot in the dark,” Sherlock grins, “Good one, though. Power connection: tiny little scuff marks around the edge of it. Every night he goes to plug it in to charge but his hands are shaking. You never see those marks on a sober man’s phone, never see a drunk’s without them.”

“Alright. The divorce?”

Sherlock hesitates, but only for a moment. “Wedding ring. You’re not wearing one, obviously, but you have been recently, judging by the tan left behind. There’s shaving foam behind your right ear. Nobody’s pointed it out to you. Traces of where it’s happened before, so obviously you live on your own - there’s no one to tell you. Circumstances were likely not ideal, as you’d be better equipped to live alone if they were.”

He hands John his phone back. “There you go, you see. You were right.”

“I was right? Right about what?”

“The police don’t consult amateurs.”

At that, Sherlock turns to face the window, shakes his leg.

“That… was amazing.” John is astounded.

Sherlock seems surprised at the response. Too much? “Do you think so?”

“Of course it was,” John replies, “It was extraordinary. It was quite extraordinary.”

“That’s not what people normally say.”

“What do people normally say?”

“‘Piss off!’”

He turns to John, smiles. John grins back. Magnetic.

They pull up outside a block of flats next to a cafe. 

“Just going upstairs to fetch my equipment,” he says, motioning for John to wait in the cab. John nods. Before closing his door, Sherlock looks at him again, a curious expression on his face.

“Are you sure I don’t know you from somewhere?” he asks, clearly disturbed at the prospect of being uncertain. Before John can even respond, he’s off.

John leans back in his seat. This entire day feels as though it’s a dream. The grey gloom, the pistol in the drawer, Sherlock, waiting in a cab outside his flat while the meter runs and he isn’t even sure whether his enthralling new acquaintance is coming back or not. Someone knocks on his window, pulling him out of his thoughts. He rolls it down carefully.

“Yes?” John says.

“Can I help you?” the man asks him.

“What do you mean?” John responds, wary of the tone, the way this man looks at him as though he is the most perplexing puzzle on earth.

“Greg Lestrade,” the man motions to himself. “Can I help you with something?”

“No?” John answers, the awkwardness mounting.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m not… sure what you’re asking me…” John responds carefully.

“Oh…” Greg responds, confusion clouding his expression. “Thanks,” he says and walks off without further explanation. John shakes his head. One of those days.


	2. Chapter 2

One text. Doesn’t matter who it’s from. It isn’t from him. Delete.

John sits on the couch, looking through his old messages, most of which are from Sherlock. The most recent from their last case together:

_Daughter not home at the time. Interesting. SH_

Even though he’d gotten a brand new phone after Sherlock came back from the dead, his inbox was still bursting with messages from him ( _I prefer to text_ ). Sighing, John deletes them all and sets his phone on the coffee table. 

He opens the orange bottle containing just one pill and swallows it dry. He doesn’t care that he isn’t even ready yet.

More than aware of the van outside, he turns the light off. Showtime at the Apollo. In less than an hour, he’ll be on his bed with a machine around his head while Dr Mierzwiak and his assistant delete his precious memories.

———

He was on the couch, reading his messages from Sherlock.

_Daughter not home at the time. Interesting. SH_

The words started fading together until, eventually, the message didn’t exist. The phone followed, dissipating until his hand was empty.

———

“I’ve called him, I’ve texted him, I’ve emailed him. Nothing. He just… froze me out. His phone isn’t even connected anymore. One fight and this is what I get. Silent treatment.”

Lestrade looked noticeably uncomfortable. Stared into his pint. Swirled the remains around and downed it. The pub was busy enough to compensate for his awkward silence, but John still remembers that something was off.

“So I decided to go to the flat. Figure out what the hell is going on. Mrs Hudson tells me he’s at Bart’s, but that I shouldn't disturb him, that I should speak to Mycroft about it. Didn’t know what she was on about, so I went over to Bart’s and… You won’t believe this…” John paused, waited for Lestrade to react. He didn't. “He was there, in the lab, and he… he looked at me like… he didn’t even know who I was. Just went about his experiments. Why would he do that to me?”

John didn’t mention how it felt. He didn’t mention that being snubbed by Sherlock was the single most crushing thing that had happened to him since he saw him fall from that roof. Worse than saying goodbye to Mary, to the lie that his life with her was. Sherlock looked right through him. Even asked him if he could help him with something. He was annoyed; John remembers it now: He was annoyed at having to entertain someone while he was busy. Someone he acted as though he didn’t even know.

“I should just go over to the flat again.”

“No no no. You don’t want to go over there, mate,” Lestrade said. “Why don’t you just see it as a sign or something? Make a clean break?”

John ignored him. He wanted to laugh. If he couldn’t make a ‘clean break’ while he thought Sherlock was dead, how was he supposed to do that knowing that he was alive, just a tube ride away?

The silence between them thickened until Lestrade seemed too uncomfortable to drag it out any longer.

“Alright. Okay. Look, mate. Here’s the deal,” Lestrade declared, seeming more like he was convincing himself than anything else. He pulled his jacket off the back of his chair, looked around the pub nervously and reached in. Handed John a card.

The rectangle that would change everything for him. John read it. Once, twice. His heart was stammering in his chest.

_Dear Mr Greg Lestrade  
_ **_Sherlock Holmes_ ** _has had_ **_John Watson_ ** _erased from his memory. Please never mention their relationship to him again.  
_ _Thank you  
_ _Lacuna Inc._

Flipped it over. Nothing. Flipped it back. Read it again.

“What. Is this? Hmm?” he asked Lestrade, panic rising and bubbling into fury.

The words begin to blur and swirl in his hands, starting with Sherlock’s name, the very block letters fading into blank card before his eyes.

_Dear Mr Greg Lestrade  
_ **_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_ ** _has had_ **_John Watson_ ** _erased from his memory. Please never mention their relationship to him again.  
_ _Thank you  
_ _Lacuna Inc._

“I don’t know!” Lestrade was saying. “It’s some… place… that does a thing.”

Suddenly, John is on the street. Rain. This was the beginning of it. The beginning of the end. 

He opened the door to the waiting area. The atmosphere, while similar to any other waiting room, had an undercurrent of foreboding. Maybe that was just him. Maybe that _is_ just him. Now.

“Good morning, Lacuna,” the pretty receptionist was saying. John remembered how pretty she was, specifically because she reminded him of Mary, but was nothing like her. She was printing cards while she spoke on the phone, cards similar to the one Lestrade had given him. All those people… She made appointments as though relationships and lives didn’t hang in the balance. As though Sherlock hadn’t done this to them. He was furious. Card after card out of the printer while she asked the person on the other end for their daytime phone number.

_This is the way the world ends_ , John thought as he approached her desk. _Not with a bang, but a whimper._

“Can I help you?” She was more cheery than she had any right to be. That was clear enough.

“Uh. John Watson… I have an appointment. With Dr Mierzwiak.”

She nodded. Her smile was pretty. John hated it. She gave him a form to fill out, as though he had a heart in his chest. As though it mattered.

“I’m just, uh. I just have a few questions,” he told her, the card in his hand evidence of this.

“You still need to fill it in,” she smiled.

When he was done, she led him through the clinical hallways. White on beige on white on grey on white.

He shook hands with the doctor, wondered at the marvel of manners. Even when your heart has been plucked from your thoracic cavity, you’re still expected to shake hands. Even then.

“You should not have seen this.” Dr Mierzwiak was apologetic.

John leaned forward conspiratorially. “This is a hoax, right?” he asked, knowing but hoping.

“I assure you, no. I’m sorry.”

Like sorry ever got anybody anywhere. Like sorry ever fixed the fact that Sherlock left him alone for two years, without a word or a sign. Like sorry ever even began to cover the fact that he’s left at all, left him behind.

“Suffice it to say,” the doctor continued, “Mr Holmes was not happy and wanted to move on. We provide that possibility.”

John thought for a while. He remembered Sherlock, up on the roof, tears in his voice.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. I want it done.”

The doctor seemed to consider it. John thought he might refuse, might tell John he hadn’t thought it through enough. Really, though, there was nothing to think through. If Sherlock had done it, he had to do it, too. Sherlock Holmes lives means John Watson lives. 

“Right. The first thing we need you to do, Dr Watson, is to go home and collect everything you own that has some association with Sherlock. Anything. We will use these items to create a map of Sherlock in your brain. Alright?”

John nodded.

“So, we’ll need photos, clothing, gifts, books, things you may have bought together, things he bought you. Blog entires. Notes. You need to empty your home… you need to empty your life. Of Sherlock. And after the mapping is done, our technicians will do the erasing in your home tonight. That way, when you awake in the morning, you find yourself in your own bed as if nothing has happened. A new life awaiting you.”

———

In his flat, John couldn’t decide what had significance and what didn’t. He deleted all his blog entires post-Sherlock. Photos had to go. The jumper he bought when a case left his other one full of chemical burns? He decided to be safe; threw it all in a black plastic bag. The ashtray from Buckingham Palace. Medical journals that helped solve cases. Ticket stubs, a box of tokens from memorable adventures, more photos, notes with Sherlock’s untidy scrawl on, informing him of some of other insignificant, everyday fact, his little notebook he used to take on cases, a pen from Sherlock (the first gift he had ever given him - his birthday. John was surprised by the entire sentiment. Hadn’t expected a gift from him at all, let alone such a thoughtful one. Sherlock had seemed embarrassed. Had looked away while John tried to thank him). All in the bag. All just things. And yet. And yet it felt as though they made up the pieces of their life together, like putting each item in a garbage bag was the act of picking them apart in a way that was irreparable. He reminded himself that Sherlock had done this.

He grabbed the bag and caught a taxi to Lacuna, wanting it over. All the pain. The two years. The wedding. The _to the very best of times, John_. All of it.

Dr Mierzwaik led him through the hallway again, for the last time. John realised that he wouldn’t even remember Lacuna; he was only here because of Sherlock; why would he?

Once in the doctor’s office, a tape recorder was set up between them and John was required to speak.

“My name is John Watson, and I am here to erase Sherlock Holmes,” he had to state, loud and clear. Didn’t want to have him be a liability in future, he supposed.

“Very good,” Dr Mierzwaik encouraged. “Now tell me about Sherlock.”

“Uh… I was just back from war. Afghanistan. Couple years back. Sherlock, he… he saved me. Saved my life, I suppose.”

John told the doctor the entire story. About his cane, about the cabbie, even about how he shot him to save the life of a man he had just met. He didn’t stop when het got to the part about how he fell in love with him.

———

“We’ll start with your recent memories and work our way back, more or less. There’s an emotional core to each of our memories and when you eradicate that core, it starts its degradation process. By the time you wake up in the morning, all the memories we’ve targeted will have withered and disappeared. As in a dream upon waking.”

_Not with a bang, but a whimper._

“Is there any risk of brain damage?” John asked.

“Well, technically speaking, the procedure _is_ brain damage, but it’s on par with a night of heavy drinking. Nothing you’ll miss,” Dr Mierzwaik reassured John.

_Not with a bang, but a whimper._

The doctor checked his vitals. Blood pressure, sugar levels, heart-rate, weight. None of them indicators of the reason he was there. 

Once that was done, he was required to sit in a chair with a big, loud x-ray machine around his head. 

“What we’re doing here, Dr Watson, is actually creating a map of your brain.” He paused to draw dots in black marker on either side of John’s head. “Now, I want you to react to these objects, if you will. Just try to focus on the memories.”

One by one, his life with Sherlock was placed on a metal tray for John to react to. The doctor tapped away on his keyboard, mapping his life out.

_This is the way the world ends  
_ _This is the way the world ends  
_ _This is the way the world ends_

The tray, along with the contents, begins to blur. Red everywhere. John has no choice but to watch it disappear. The doctor’s office was next. “We’ll start with your recent memories and work our way back, more or less…” the doctor was saying, before it is all red. No more sounds or visual stimuli other than the colour red. The taste of it.

———

Their last fight. The very last time they spoke to each other as friends, as two people who knew each other.

_This is the last time I saw you_ , John thinks.

In 221B, making tea in the kitchen. It reminded him of old times. Sherlock was in his chair, plucking the strings on his violin, deep in thought, as usual. 

“Tea?” John asked him.

“Why do you still live there?”

“Sorry, what?” John asked. He abandoned the tea preparations and moved to the kitchen doorway.

Sherlock looked up from his violin. “Why do you still live there, John? Mary is gone. You’re… unattached. Why do you insist on living there still?”

John just looked at him. Shook his head.

“What?” Sherlock narrowed his eyes. “Is it so inconceivable that you’d come back here? You don’t have to see it as a failure, you know. You could do it just because… just because…”

“Because what, Sherlock?” John snapped. He hadn’t meant to. His patience was already thin. The clinic was sapping all his energy. He hadn’t had time to go along on many cases, let alone time to unwind alone. The last thing he felt like doing was standing in the middle of the living room of 221B, listening to Sherlock giving him life advice and verbalise his insecurities.

He wishes now that he hadn’t.

“Because you want to,” Sherlock muttered, returning his gaze to his violin.

John shook his head again. Started walking back into the kitchen. Changed his mind. Walked back.

_Turn back_ , John thinks now. _Stop. Turn back. Make the tea. Sit down. Stop._

“I am sick and tired of living my life the way that _you_ think is acceptable. If I came back here, would it be for me? Hmm? Or for you? Not _every_. _single. fucking. part_ of my life can be about _you_ , Sherlock. I’ve. I’ve given enough, hmm? Wouldn’t you say?”

_Stop. Turn back. Make the tea. Stop._

Sherlock ignored him, carried on plucking. At the time, it only served to make John angrier with him. He wanted a fight. He wanted to be punched. He wanted, in retrospect he realises, to be convinced.

“I’m never coming back here, Sherlock. I can’t. Not again.”

_Stop. Please. Rewind. Say, “I’d love to come back here. And I can. Again.” Say, “I love you more than I could ever show you or tell you and I’m sorry.” Say, “I’m coming back, and not just because Mary’s gone, but because I want to.”_

Because now that John has a moment to relive it, he realises that’s the point. How could he come back to Baker Street, a failure in every single way, and have it be just because Mary left? Not because he wants to or because he needs to, but because he failed. At living a life without the man who so clearly is capable of living one without him.

Around him, red. It sounds like red. Sherlock’s violin is the first to go, its sound blurring long after the object itself. John is happy to release this one. 


	3. Chapter 3

_We hadn’t been happy in a while_ , he thinks.

John, trudging up the stairs to 221B, listening for sounds of life. Sherlock was on the couch, lying down, his arm flung over his eyes. Not mind palace. Bad mood. John had sighed, annoyed. Felt as though he was dealing with everybody else, and when would his time come?

Mary was gone, the only trace of her just whispers. John told everyone it was a divorce; smiled and said it was mutual. Didn’t bother recounting the complications with Moriarty and Mary’s past. Didn’t need to.

He was back to working cases with Sherlock some days, but spent most at the clinic.

The day seems to crack apart, letting red bleed through.

They hadn’t been happy in a while.

———

It had been a fantastic case. Sherlock was overjoyed with the artistry behind it. Nobody believed he’d solve it. John was even starting to doubt it. But he did it. Of course he did. 

They went back to Baker Street afterwards, even though the adrenaline was still heavy in their veins, even though John didn’t live there anymore. Chinese food. It was greasy and Sherlock ate a lot. John remembers it now: Looking at him, his lips shiny from the oil. Sherlock glanced up from across the table, bashful. John supposed his gaze was a bit insistent, unwavering. If Sherlock had the ability, John thought he would have blushed. Sherlock smiled that little smile of his, the one that always shot right to John’s heart, making it feel as though it was vacuuming all the blood from the rest of his body, but John didn’t smile back. Just stared at him. Undisguised. No need to conceal it with a silly grin. It continued, and the heat was almost too much. Sherlock must have thought so, because he cleared his throat, looked down into his food and it was gone - a moment just like all the others: passed. 

The edges of the kitchen start sparking red. 

_Let me keep this one_ , John thinks. And then, aloud, “Please let me keep this one,” to Dr Mierzwaik, or his assistant, or himself. The sparks get quicker, hotter, redder. Like they’re punishing him. 

———

His memories are vignettes. Sherlock’s hair isn’t as dark as he takes his hand on the tarmac. 

“I wish I’d just told you,” he says to his friend as they grip hands before he will inevitably board the little plane.

“Me too,” the Sherlock in his mind replies. 

———

His wedding is altered indefinitely. Sherlock isn’t even there anymore. It’s just him and Mary, dancing well into the early morning, his best friend’s departure no longer at the forefront of his mind. His mistake no longer making the heaviness in his stomach spiral and nauseate him.

———

“Funny!” 

“Thank you,” Sherlock responded. John remembers thinking that he seemed so shy about it.

He never thought that he would spend his stag night this way. Not that he was complaining.

“Am I human?”

“Sometimes.”

“Can’t have ‘sometimes’, has to be…”

“Yes, you’re human.” John put his glass down, wanted to be sober. Wanted to enjoy it without the liquid haze.

“And am I a man?”

“Yep.”

“Tall?”

“Not as tall as people think.”

“Nice?”

“Ish…”

“Clever?”

“I’d say so.”

“You would?”

John giggled. Had Mary ever made him feel this happy? Without any effort at all?

“Am I important?”

“To some people.” _To me._

“Do ‘people’ like me?”

“Uh, no, they don’t. You tend to rub them up the wrong way.” _I love you._

“Ok.” Sherlock leaned back. John thought he looked beautiful. With his inhibitions lowered, defences down, he had never been more beautiful. “Am I the current King of England?”

John laughed easily.

_I miss this_ , he thinks. _I miss laughing._

“You know we don’t have a king?”

“Don’t we? Your go,” Sherlock sat back.

John leaned forward. Sherlock was the earth and John was the moon and it was _his go_. He slipped off his chair and grabbed hold of Sherlock’s knee to steady himself.

The sound of red floods his eardrums. It’s louder when it’s unwanted.

He shrugged. “I don’t mind.”

Sherlock’s face is fading, the spotlight on the moment weakening.

“I want to call it off,” he says suddenly. “Can you hear me?” he shouts upwards, as though it will help. “I don’t want this anymore! I want to call it off!”

He stares at Sherlock, docile with alcohol and joy and he can’t do it anymore. He needs it to stop. Snatches his hand. Yanks him to his feet.

“We have to go,” he tells Sherlock, but his friend is too tall, too drunk, he doesn’t understand the urgency.

Over the swell of red he can hear: “Suffice it to say, Mr Holmes was not happy and wanted to move on. We provide that possibility.”

He turns around to look at Sherlock, but he’s already gone.


	4. Chapter 4

His memories, the vignettes, they’re forming a tunnel now and he’s running through it, trying to grab onto Sherlock in every direction.

He pauses for a second to watch his friend fall from Bart’s.

“Leave a note when?” he asked him, though the answer was plain. Easier to pretend.

“Goodbye, John,” Sherlock said.

John runs faster and the swell of red behind him overtakes the image of Sherlock dropping his phone off the roof and for a second, he’s relieved, but the red isn’t going anywhere, it isn’t discerning and it doesn’t have preferences. Memories that aren’t like humans, even though they belong to us.

He’s grabbing onto every incarnation of Sherlock that he can, but the red, the voice, the “Suffice it to say, Mr Holmes was not happy and wanted to move on. We provide that possibility,” is faster.

If he could just reach Dr Mierzwaik, maybe this could end. He finds himself sitting at the desk across from the doctor, but this time, when he says, “Now tell me about Sherlock,” John says, “Wake me up!” instead.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Dr Watson, I thought you understood what was going on here.”

“No. No. You’re erasing him from me. You’re… you’re erasing me from him.” John looks around, trying to think of ways to put a stop to it, to hold on to at least _something_ of Sherlock.

“I’m part of your imagination, too, John. How can I help you from there? I’m inside your head, too. I’m you!” And John believes him because the facial expressions aren’t quite right; his memory can’t seem to muster up the nuances.

———

Baskerville. They were in the car, on the way. From the driver’s seat, Sherlock looked over. John thought about how he never needed to have another girlfriend again, if it meant that he could just live with Sherlock, undisturbed. They ran deeper than girlfriends, anyway. More. Even without the sex. John was sure that Sherlock thought the same. He didn’t know yet that Sherlock barely considered him a friend. 

“Sherlock. Sherlock, they’re erasing you,” he says now. “I hired them, alright. I’m sorry. I’m so stupid.” 

“Calm down, John. Enjoy the scenery,” he responds. 

_No no no. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t say that._

“I need it to stop. Before I wake up and I don’t know you anymore.” He can scarcely look him in the eye. Even now. Even knowing that he’s not really him, that he’s just some warped extension of John himself. Somehow, he’s still relying on Sherlock to help him end it.

“Call and cancel it, then,” Sherlock says, ever the voice of reason and calm logic. _Except later. Not later. Not when he’s been drugged and he’s afraid._

“I can’t just cancel it - I’m asleep!”

“Wake yourself up.”

John thinks about it. “Okay,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Okay, let me just magically wake myself up.”

Sherlock is quiet, his eyes on the road.

“You erased me. That’s why I did this. That’s why I’m doing this whole thing in the first place.”

That earns him a reaction. Sherlock looks down with what John assumes is guilt. _How can he be guilty? He’s you. You’re him. He isn’t guilty; you want him to be guilty. He wouldn’t be._

———

“John.”

At the desk at 221B. Sherlock’s phone is about to moan in Irene Adler’s voice. They’re both reading the newspaper.

_We hadn’t been happy in a while_ , John thinks. _But we were once. We were happy. I could have died right then. I was just happy. I was just exactly where I wanted to be._

Did he think that, then? On the day The Woman’s texts began? Did he know that on that day?

“I have another idea for this problem,” Sherlock tells him without looking away from the newspaper. “This is a memory of me. The way you were happy, the way you imagined you might be able to live here forever, just with me. The eraser doctor is coming here. So what if you take me somewhere else? Somewhere where I don’t belong. And we hide there until morning.”

John considers it while he chews his toast. 

The sun is suddenly on his back. He’s sitting in the sand, waiting. The air is thick and dry, the taste of desert is strong. Sherlock is there with him, even though he never was. They wait together. Someone is going to come to him. Someone is going to die.

He tastes more than sees the red and he doesn’t even have the strength to fight it.

“They found us,” he tells Sherlock.

“Hide me somewhere deeper, John. Hide me in humiliation.”

_Humiliation. Hmm._

And just like that, John is in his bed, the one he shared with Mary. She isn’t here, but she will arrive soon. Sherlock is next to him, on top of the covers.

_It doesn’t get more humiliating than this_ , he thinks.

Mary was out for the night. John had too much whiskey, and he went to bed buzzed and lonely. Even if she had been there, he’d have been lonely. 

His thoughts turned to Sherlock, back at Baker Street, probably planning the seating arrangement for John’s upcoming wedding.

Before he could even think about what he was doing, John’s fist was in his pants. He shut his eyes as tight as he possibly could and thought about his friend. In his mind, Sherlock was lying on the couch, wearing nothing but his dressing gown - the blue one that John loved seeing him in. His eyes were closed and his legs were slightly open. But, instead of holding his hands steepled under his chin, he was touching himself. In John’s imagination, it was all for him. In John’s imagination, Sherlock was in 221B touching himself to thoughts of John, while he did the same. John imagined him dragging his milky, strong hands down his torso, pausing only to concentrate on his hardened nipples, and lowering his attention, fisting himself through his dressing gown lewdly. He could almost smell him, a sense which got stronger as he got closer to climaxing.

“John, where did you put the - ” Mary walked in. Early.

John felt dirty and ashamed. Yes, she couldn’t know that his thoughts weren’t of her, but his face had still burned. 

“Oh,” she said, turning around, “I’ll just…”

She walked out and they never spoke about it again. John had felt mortified the entire night and for the better part of the rest of that week, too. 

Beside him, he hears the rumble of Sherlock’s laugh and his embarrassment is doubled, not that he thought it possible.

As John turns to him to tell him to shut it, though, the red encases him.

He wishes he could have a word with Dr Mierzwaik about how thorough he is, but he won’t even remember him in the morning. 


	5. Chapter 5

Sherlock had looked at John and walked towards him. John was proud of what he’d done for him. Saved his life. Saved the life of an almost-stranger. He didn’t question it then. Doesn’t now, either. All he had to do was what he was good at: pull a trigger. 

“Sergeant Donovan has just been explaining everything - the two pills. Been a dreadful business, hasn’t it?” John said.

Sherlock was quiet for a moment, and then: “Good shot.”

“Yes, yes, must have been, through that window,” John tried to play dumb - as if that would work on Sherlock.

“Well, you’d know… Need to get the powder burns out of your fingers. I don’t suppose you’d serve time for this, but let’s avoid the court case.”

His use of the pronoun sparked something in John. _Us. We. Ours._

“Are you alright?” Sherlock asked. John wasn’t alright. Not really. He hadn’t been alright when he realised it with Sholto and he wasn’t alright now.

“I remember this moment really well,” John says now, and Sherlock smiles in response. “It would be different. If we could just give it another go. We could make it different.”

Sherlock looks at him with gratitude and laughter in his eyes - the same as it was that night. “Remember me,” he says. “Try your best. Maybe we can.”

And the red tears him away.

———

_This is the day we met._

John is sitting in the restaurant, across from Sherlock. He finds he doesn’t quite mind the candle this time around.

_You were looking out the window, distracted as usual. I remember being drawn to you, even then. You were in one of your tight shirts that I would come to hate eventually, like a taunt._

“People don’t have arch-enemies,” John said.

“I’m sorry?” That got Sherlock’s attention for a second.

“In real life. There are no arch-enemies in real life. Doesn’t happen.”

“Doesn’t it? Sounds a bit dull.” And to punctuate the point, he continued to look out the window. Dull.

“So who did I meet?”

“What do people have then, in their ‘real lives’?”

“Friends. People they know. People they like. People they don’t like. Girlfriends, boyfriends…”

“Yes, well, as I was saying. Dull.”

“You don’t have a girlfriend, then?” John willed him to say no, without even realising it.

“Girlfriend? No, not really my area.”

Relief. Momentary. “Oh, right. Do you have a boyfriend? Which is fine, by the way.”

“I know it’s fine!”

“So you’ve got a boyfriend, then?”

“No.”

John wanted to know more, but somehow felt like he couldn’t ask. Wasn’t invited to ask.

“Right. Okay. You’re unattached. Like me. Fine. Good,” he said instead.

“John, um… I think you should know that I consider myself married to my work, and while I’m flattered by your interest, I’m really not looking for any-”

“No. No, I’m not asking… I’m just saying, it’s all fine.”

“Good,” Sherlock nodded. “Thank you.” And he did seem grateful, somehow. John was proud of that, at the time. The fact that he didn’t push it. That he made him feel accepted.

“This is it, John,” Sherlock says, looking at him. “It’s going to be gone soon.” 

“I know.”

“What do we do?”

“Enjoy it,” John says.

And they do. They chase a taxi through London, run into alleyways and leap over rooftops and climb stairs and before long, they’re leaning against the wall at the bottom of the stairs to 221B, laughing and trying to catch their breath.

“That was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done.”

“And you invaded Afghanistan.”

John laughed at that, and Sherlock joined in soon enough.

_We were happy. You saved me. We didn’t know it then, but you had just saved my life. And now it will be gone. We never even got a chance to say it -_

“I wish you’d have told me,” Sherlock says.

“I wish I’d have told you, too. _Now_ I wish I’d have told you. I wish I’d done a lot of things. I wish I had…” John looks into Sherlock’s eyes, green and full of the love John feels for him. “…I wish I’d have told you. I do.”

He looks away. The moment too intense, even though it isn’t Sherlock. Not really.

“John.”

He sighs, looks back.

“What if you told me this time?”

“I can’t. There’s no memory left.”

“Let’s make up a goodbye at least. Pretend we had one.”

They look at each other, the heat that often accompanies such moments between them firmly in place.

Sherlock leans down a little, rests his forehead on John’s. “Goodbye John.”

“I love you,” John says quietly as the vignette blurs and ripples.

“Meet me at Russel Square Gardens,” Sherlock whispers, and it carries over the red and the rippling and then he’s gone forever.

_Not with a bang, but a whimper._


	6. Chapter 6

“Are you sure I don’t know you from somewhere?” Sherlock asks, disturbed at the prospect of being uncertain. Before John can even respond, he’s off.

That niggling sensation. Sherlock has never bothered with intuition before. Hunches? Yes. Sixth sense? No. There was never a need to consider it. His mind was enough; no room to involve the mystical.

And yet.

And yet there is _something_ more. Something to it. Not just the fact that the ex-military man waiting for him downstairs in the taxi is… alluring, to say the least. 

Also not just the fact that he had been feeling… more… lost lately. If he acknowledged it for what it was, he felt like he was disappearing and nothing made sense, except…

Except his new friend.

While Sherlock searches for his little kit, he thinks about some of the other things that haven’t made a lot of sense in the past few weeks, starting with the morning he woke up in the green pyjama set with the white piping. Sherlock had feared the worst, then - dementia; the ultimate terror for a man whose only weapon is his mind. Now he isn’t certain.

His mind palace has been confusing, for a start. Hallways that make no sense, lined with wood and arched french doors; places he’s never seen or been to. Passing a woman on the street, her perfume filling his nose and alerting his brain to… well, it had turned out to be nothing, but he could have sworn… The very _feeling_ of lacunae in his mind. A lingering feeling. A scratch on the table that he couldn’t place. Small things that added up, as in a case, or didn’t, as in an unsuccessful conclusion.

But Sherlock isn’t used to unsuccessful conclusions.

He rushes down the stairs, back to the taxi, back to John.

“Thought you might not come back,” John says lightheartedly.

“Why wouldn’t I?” His suspicion is seeping through. John just smiles and they ride the rest of the way in silence. Companionable. Interesting. Most people have a need to fill it with inane chatter.

They pull up in front of a red brick face apartment block. Sherlock leads John right to the body on the grass, lifting the police tape for him along the way, where Lestrade is leaning down.

“Lestrade,” he says by way of greeting. “What do we have here?”

Lestrade glances up, right at them and, for a second, looks as though he’s been slapped. He’s very clearly struggling to keep a frown off his face and his eyes off of John. He doesn’t ask why Sherlock brought a companion or who he is.

“Name’s Lara Sutton. Been here a couple of hours. Landlady found her when she came out to water the plants.”

Sherlock examines the body, barely able to concentrate. The tension radiating off Lestrade could power all of Greater London. And Sherlock isn’t normally aware of such things.

When he’s done revealing, with the aid of John’s medical expertise, not only all the obvious clues that Lestrade and his team of idiots missed, but the culprit as well, John just stares at him.

“That’s fantastic!” he says.

“D’you know you do that out loud?” Sherlock asks him.

“Sorry. I’ll shut up.”

Sherlock all but blushes. “No, it’s... fine.”

Lestrade won’t look him in the eye as he barks out where he can find his suspect, and he intends to find out why.

———

“Sherlock,” comes Mycroft’s annoying answer on the third ring.

John had got a separate taxi home from the crime scene, with no promise of a further meeting. Now that Sherlock was back in 221B, he couldn’t think of anything else to do but phone his insufferable brother.

“Why did I wake up two weeks ago in my bed in foreign pyjamas?”

“Sherlock, what on earth -”

“Mycroft,” Sherlock warns.

A small sigh, as though the world is on his shoulders. Ever the drama queen. “Maybe it’s best not to ask questions you don’t necessarily want the answer to.”

“What the _hell_ is that supposed to mean?”

“Only that perhaps these… lacunae… you think you want to fill with are best left empty.”

Sherlock hangs up with a scowl. And then:

_Oh._

_ Lacunae.  _


	7. Chapter 7

Sitting in his leather chair in the sitting room of 221B, Sherlock turns the disc over in his hands. _Sherlock Holmes // John Watson_ , it says on a label, with the logo for Lacuna just under. It’s about two weeks old, as suspected, and the print has worn slightly near the bottom left corner…

But none of that matters. What matters is that there exists a disc upon which his name, next to his new friend’s, is written. He hasn’t listened to it yet - can’t find it in himself to get over just _looking_ at it.

The moment he interpreted Mycroft’s clue - the word that had somehow been floating around in his mind for days without him stopping to be suspicious - he had searched the internet, ignoring definitions and book titles and social media handles until, finally, on the second page, there it was: 

_lacunainc.com:  
Lacuna Inc. is the brainchild of Dr. Howard Mierzwiak who after years of dedicated research has developed a cutting-edge, non-surgical procedure for the focused erasure of troubling memories._  

Even though it was what he had roughly deduced on his own, it made Sherlock feel as though his body was disconnected from his mind. To see a thing so plainly stated is always different than surmising it.

The gaps that he couldn’t prove were there before are now a fact. And, while Sherlock isn’t exactly a delicate man, he had to wonder at what Mycroft had advised - that it may be best not to ask questions about things he may not want the answer to. Everything Sherlock isn’t. His entire life has been about prodding and pursuing and pondering. Only now, it isn’t the resistance of others or difficult inferences that he is to push back against, it is his own. He did this for a reason. Created - as the website and subsequent research had indicated - a pattern of targeted erasures in his mind. As it so happened, Sherlock was surprised that none of the research stimulated any triggers in his memory, but he supposes - as well as fears - that the strongest memories, the ones that may leave traces behind even after Dr Mierwiak’s procedure, are all emotion-based. He knows that negative emotional memories, which are thought to be captured in not only the hippocampus, but the amygdala as well, tend to be the most potent and detailed, the hardest to be rid of, and that is precisely why he’s sitting on his chair in the middle of the afternoon, undecided about his next course of action. 

And he knows what he has to do, really. 

_Baker Street. Come at once if convenient. SH_

He thinks about the 7% solution behind the sink. But he needs answers first. Interesting how his ruthless pursuit for the truth doesn’t as easily extend to his own life. It’s only because he knows himself - if he wanted to delete something so badly, it must have been worth deleting. And too difficult to delete alone, which, once again, points to sentiment. Heaps of it.

_If inconvenient, come anyway. SH_ , he sends next, because who is he kidding? He needs to know, even if a large part of him doesn’t want to. Know why John lied, pretended not to know him. Why Lestrade didn’t say anything to him, even after.

———

It’s only half an hour later that John shows up. Sherlock is lying on the couch, reclining in his classic thinking pose. Trying resolutely not to think. And, yes, failing. He has three nicotine patches on his arm because his 7% solution isn’t really an option at the moment.

“What are you doing?” John asks as he walks to the couch.

Sherlock wonders, not for the first time, what they were to each other. Did John often approach him while he was in his thinking pose? Ask what he was doing? Something more?

“Nicotine patch. Helps me think… Impossible to sustain a smoking habit in London these days. Bad news for brain work.”

Friends? Lovers? Enemies? He fears he has the answer already. He doesn’t have _friends._ And enemies are hard to come by, and should be valued. That leaves…

“It’s good news for breathing,” John says, instead of, presumably, _Why did you text me to come?_

“Oh, breathing… Breathing’s boring.”

John comes closer still. “Is that three patches?”

“It’s a three patch problem,” he replies, glancing briefly at his new old friend. _Why did I do this?_

“Well?” 

_What were we to each other?_

“You asked me to come. I’m assuming it’s important?”

“Oh, yes, of course. On my desk, there’s a disk. I want you to put it into my laptop and hit play.”

John just stands there, glaring at him. Does he know what this is? Surely he realises Sherlock would have figured it out? If they knew each other? He appears put out, but not angry. He crosses the room and puts the disk in the laptop. 

“ _My name is Sherlock Holmes. I’m here to erase John Watson_ ,” the disk begins in Sherlock’s unmistakable rich voice.

“What is this?” John asks.  

“ _He’s stupid. Is that enough reason to erase someone? I’ve been thinking lately how I was before and how I am now and… he changed me. I’m always…_ feeling _something or other now. I don’t like myself when I’m with him. I don’t like myself anymore. I can’t stand to even look at him. And that pathetic ex-wife of his, with her charming lies and… it isn’t about her. Not really…_ ”

“What are you doing?” John insists. Sherlock ignores him, listens to the disk some more. His heart tastes like it’s beating metal through his veins. He’s lucky breathing is boring because it’s difficult to do right now.

“Are you screwing with me?” John’s voice is rising over the disk and what’s the point, Sherlock can’t hear it anyway, but at least John will get it now, that nobody tries to fool Sherlock Holmes, the world’s only consulting detective, only now he’s not so sure, because John looks as though he’s about to be sick and Sherlock has just now understood that _he’s_ the idiot, the biggest idiot there is and that perhaps John wasn’t pretending and. _Oh._

Sherlock’s hands are shaking and John looks as though he’s about to punch something, or rather someone. His jaw tenses up and then he seems to gather himself, straightens his back and nods once. Leaves. Sherlock doesn’t move a muscle for 7 whole minutes after he hears the door slam and then he springs into action. 

 


	8. Chapter 8

Acquiring John’s disk from Lacuna is stupidly easy. It’s not as though Sherlock had any trouble with his own, and they haven’t installed any security in the interim. While he scours the cabinet for _Watson_ , he briefly considers sending everyone’s recordings to them. They deserve to know, don’t they? Deserve to not walk around fooled into believing their life is one thing when, in fact, it’s completely another. That they had a previous friend. Or lover. Or enemy. 

His own disk, which he managed to play once through on the third try without his heart feeling as though it may explode, reveals that him and John were friends. The sound of his own voice playing over the speakers made him uneasy, and not just because he can’t remember saying those things. Also not only in the way hearing one’s own voice is always an unexpected shock. It was… how broken he sounded. Specifically when he got to the part about how he thought John would be waiting for him when he got back from tracking down the remainder of Moriarty’s network. How, for two years, John had been his salvation, while John’s was Mary. According to the disk, Sherlock had liked Mary, but she had turned out to be yet another loose thread in the network. He hadn’t gone into detail, likely for legal reasons, but after John had left her, he’d expected him to move back to Baker Street, where they had once lived together. He hadn’t.

After the unfortunate blunder with John, he wants to give him the opportunity to listen to his own disk. Of course, not all his reasons are selfless. He wants to know why John deleted _him_. He can guess, of course, by the sticker on John’s disk being fresher than his, but he’d like to hear it for himself.

So, as soon as he has the offending item in his coat, he hails a taxi to John’s flat. Nevermind that it’s 2am. Nevermind that John probably never wants to see him again. Nevermind that all of this is mindbendingly absurd.

This is one of the only times in his life that Sherlock can recall feeling afraid of exposition. It takes him a few moments to ring John’s bell. Moments during which he contemplates:

a) John’s possible reaction upon opening the door.

b) What John has been thinking since he heard Sherlock’s recording earlier that afternoon.

c) Where this will leave them. Or find them. They’re not lost, but he supposes they could be and just don’t know it. Not properly.

The first two are answered as soon as John opens up and, a) stares for a moment, and then nods, stepping aside for Sherlock to enter once he flashes John the disk with _John Watson // Sherlock Holmes_ on it and then b) says, quite plainly and with no contention, “Let’s have it, then,” while pointing Sherlock in the direction of the stereo.

Right.

_“My name is John Watson, and I am here to erase Sherlock Holmes.”_

 Sherlock looks at John, who’s staring at the speaker as though it isn’t his voice coming from it.

_“Very good,”_ Dr Mierzwaik is saying. _“Now tell me about Sherlock.”_

_“Uh… I was just back from war. Afghanistan. Couple years back. Sherlock, he… he saved me. Saved my life, I suppose…”_

When John-the-recording starts talking about a case, their first case - something about a cane and a cabbie, John-his-new-friend pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket and hands it to Sherlock. 

“Look what I found,” he says over the story of the end of their lives together.

It’s a small scrap of paper with Sherlock’s unmistakable writing on it:

_Lestrade called. I’ll be at the Yard. Text me when you get home. SH_

And Sherlock doesn’t know why this, of all things, causes his eyes to well up. That they had this life together, one that he can’t remember, no matter how many rooms in his mind palace he tries to turn over. That he loved this man, as his disk had revealed. That he wasn’t loved in return, or he was but never actively, never enough to be told - or convinced - of it.

“I’m… I’m sorry I sprung this on you, I…” he says to John, who’s been looking at him the entire time he’s been reading and rereading the little note.

“It’s okay,” John responds, and, although it really, really isn’t, in a way it is.

“John, I really like you. I hate that this… whatever this is… happened.”

_“I think, to him, the act of love is so tasteless that he’d rather put us… put himself through this procedure than face it. He’s a coward. He’s the bravest man I know, and yet he’s such a coward.”_

John looks embarrassed. Sherlock simply gives him a half grin. 

“I think I’m going to… go… I’m… I’m going to go now,” he says, probably proving John-the-recording correct, but he can’t care right now, not when his vision is whiting out at the corners and he feels as though his legs aren’t legs at all, but more like they’re made of the floor itself. He makes it to the door and turns around. Nods. A smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. _This is it._ Walks down the hall as John closes the door.

He makes it to the entrance hall before -

“Wait,” John says calmly, rounding the corner.

Sherlock stops. “What?” he says, not unkindly, and turns to hear him out. What he could possibly say, Sherlock has no idea, but he’s clearly not the perceptive one.

“I don’t know. Just. Just wait.”

They look at each other. Just look. Sherlock can’t presume to know what John is thinking, but he knows he feels as though his entire universe has been shattered and shoddily patched together.

“I’m not perfect, John, I… I am a coward. In a lot of ways. I don’t allow myself to feel, because it gets in the way, clouds my judgement, affects the work. When I do feel, I push back. I… I find it difficult…”

“I can’t see anything that I don’t like about you. Right now, I can’t,” John responds.

“But you will. You will. You’ll discover things. And I’ll get bored with you and feel trapped because that’s what happens with me.” 

They both hesitate, just looking at each other. _What more is there to say when we’ve said it all and remember none of it?_

John shrugs, his left shoulder hunching up to his neck, a half-smile playing on his eyes.

“OK,” he says simply.

“OK,” Sherlock nods. “OK,” he repeats. Laughs, even while a sob escapes him, and John joins in, and pretty soon, they’re looking at each other incredulously, their laughter out of place but exactly right. Like them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was toying with the idea of taking this further - of "resolving" the ambiguous ending, but then I realised that would be making a fic of my own fic. I may write another part in the future, though.  
> Thank you to [Sarah](http://archiveofourown.org/users/whatsortofcase/pseuds/whatsortofcase) for all the help and encouragement. You're the best!  
> [Come follow me on tumblr for updates and ficlets.](http://johnwatso.tumblr.com)

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me [on tumblr](http://johnwatso.tumblr.com).


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